Ok…to sum things up; We are apparently catching a few terrorists…uh…potential terrorists anyway. Problem is that in the process, Rumsfeld is smashing people’s civil rights like a spastic blind man flaying around in a crystal shop.

On one hand I’d say; Well its war and sacrifices have to be made. Rough go fella, buck up, suck it in, put things back together and carry on.

On the other hand; What if suddenly the feds kicked down MY door dragging me away to some undisclosed location and beat me up for a couple of months? Well my life would be SCREWED and I would be one pissed off tax payer looking for some pay back! Not to mention destroying all progress Iâ€™ve made subduing my nagging authority complex.

I have been reading that when they make mistakes like this in Iraq, out comes the “compensation” money bags guy. However here, our people have to sue to get any recognition or compensation for loss. So the law protects Rumsfeld, and, Rumsfeldâ€™s policy protects/compensates the Iraqis, but the law can be circumvented when it comes to protecting me. Furthermore Rumsfeld has no policy compensating me for loss. So how did I get left out of the deal? I pay Rumsfeldâ€™s salary!

So IMO we AT LEAST need to get a couple of these generous money bag guys over here taking care of our people when our Civil Servants screw up the lives of the people they trying to protect by mistake.

Or am I being politically naÃ¯ve here?

gattsuru

Salmineo :
I must have missed your rapid complaints about Clinton, Ms. Reno, and their constant reamings of the Bill of Rights, including the 1st (freedom of association through the â€œViolent Crime Control Actâ€?, which made membership of some groups illegal, even if the group or individual had not commited a crime), the 2nd (â€™Assaultâ€™ weapon ban, anyone?), the 4th (â€?Filegateâ€?), the 5th (Waco/Branch Davidians), and the 5th through 8th (the little-known Sherburne events).

I seem to remember people being killed for ‘tax issues’ during the Clinton administration. That’s a damn lifechanging moment. So is having your house broken into by men armed with machine guns and body armor, to pass a kid to the INS.

What? I couldn’t hear that. The outcry from the political left was truely deafening here.

Governments fuck over rights. That’s what they’re there for. However, I fail to see how, given that the Hamidan ruling on the matter clearly stated that we can leave these “illegal combatants” around til the “end of hostilities” – this being the very limitations required by the Geneva Convention in question,

OP:

Neither the AP, nor any other wire service I am aware of, uses a BUD/S guardian to check assertions of Navy SEALS. I would be very doubtful on this matter.

Particularly since he was found in the same vehicle as bomb parts (note : earliest stories on him I can find do not refer to them as ‘potential’ bomb parts, just ‘bomb parts’, so it’s not likely a can of gasoline), I would strongly suggest against waving your tail about this finding until you are damned sure about who and what he is, and what he was or was not doing.

gattsuru

Ah, and for more information on the story :

* Cyrus Kar was of Iranian origin naturalized to the United States.

* The car he was in before being captured had multiple bags filled with “washing machine timers”, “often used by insurgent bombers”.

* A search through the BUD/S records systems available online provided no records. ALL Navy Seals are in these records, even those on active duty. I’m spreading out some feelers further to see if it’s just missing information, but I’d be very careful about spreading that meme until you have proof of BUD/S graduation. This is not something you can trust the media on – they’ve believed fake SEALs for months on end before. It’s also possible that someone put SEAL into this without Kar actually saying so (yes, some writers are that clueless).

Point one doesn’t really matter much, it’s just interesting to know. Point three is mostly nitpicky, unless Kar was not a SEAL and lied about it himself (but, again, I’d suggest against putting any bets down on it til you find records of his training).

Point two is a bit problematic. If I flag down a taxi that has a pile of guns in the back, then ask to be driven to Washington DC, I’m going to probably get arrested, whether I knew about the guns or not.

And it’s quite possible (see Sherburne, again) to go two months without being informed of what your ‘crime’ was and not be in violation of the whole “right to a speedy trial” thing.

ASO

gattsuru,

Can we please stop with the “[insert previous president here] did it” line? I don’t care if we are talking about Eisenhower, Reagan, or Clinton, but just because these guys may have trampled on the rights of those who came before me doesn’t mean that today’s president can trample on mine. Come up with a better reason for explaining why the approach is the correct one. I appreciate a well reasoned argument, but whining that “so-and-so got to do it!” is too much.

And in follow up to your second post, failure to be informed of your crime has little to do with the “right to a speedy trial thing”, as you put it. It has to do with the explicit clause in the Bill of Rights that provides that “the accused shall enjoy the right…to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation.”

Now, that being said, the fact that this happened in Iraq, and not the US, is relevent because (1) Iraq is not the US and it has its own rules and rights, whatever they happen to be today and (2) Iraq is, for all intents and purposes, under military rule (cf. martial law). So the rights one may have in the US as citizen of the US do not necessarily apply in the middle of a war zone in a different country. As for the guy’s claim that the detention violated the Geneva convention, its just a piece of paper until someone enforces it, and who is going to self-enforce a rule if they don’t have to?

gattsuru

I apologize. I’m just fairly irritated by the partisan apeachniks that are ever so against violation of human rights, as long as there’s a Republican in office.

As to the Geneva Convention, none of it states that we have to try prisoners of war immediately, or inform them of their crimes. In fact, it clearly states that we can wait until the end of hostilities before doing so.

Still haven’t found anything proving Kar’s BUD/S graduation. Starting to get skeptical, particularly since some places are alternating between calling him a Navy officer, a Marine, and a SEAL.

Froggy

This guy IS NOT A NAVY SEAL! The preceeding link is to the SOCNET BBS where the administrators have access to the database containing the names of every person who has EVER completed SEAL training. Feel free to conduct your own investigation, but let me assure you that SOCNET is THE authority on the web for verifying false SEAL claims. Believe me, it is a full time job. Once you are satisfied, please update your post to reflect that Kar falsely claims to be a SEAL.

Thanks,

Matt Heidt

Zorro

VeriSeal blew it open on their site within hours of it hitting the wires. They say Kar wasn’t a Seal but that they have seen nothing to substantiate that he ever said he was. Check it out veriseal.org